‘You think I don’t know what goes on wid you an’ all dem boys you have comin ere all the hours of the day and night?’

‘Mind your own business. You live on your side of the yard, and I live on mine.’

‘Ah gwine call the police. A big white man like you behavin’ in such a low brow way. You should be ashamed of yourself.’

David Hawkins pulls up in his car outside Michael’s front door.

Michael invites him in. Holds up a half bottle of gin. ‘Care to join me?’ David shakes his head ‘No’.

‘It’s not like you to miss a rehearsal Michael, and you’ve missed two.’

‘She’s gone’

‘I thought you were expecting it.’

‘She didn’t recognise me.’

‘But that was part of her condition.’

‘It all feels like such a waste’.

‘What do you mean?’

Ten years ago, my father had an accident, and needed help looking after my mother, I thought it was an opportunity for us to finally live together as a family.’

‘You have never really spoken about your family to me. I only know that your mother was in the sanitorium after your father died.’

‘My Grandparents disapprove of my parents’ marriage. they thought my father was beneath her socially and he had no money.’

‘You mentioned that your father was a doctor and your mother’s mental health had always been fragile. Medicine is a highly respected profession, surely, your father would be seen as ideal.’

‘In those days psychiatry was new and suspect and very poorly paid (pause). I’m sorry if I’m going on. I just feel the need to talk.

‘I don’t mind listening,’ said David. ‘But as the director of the extravaganza, you can’t miss anymore rehearsals.’

‘When I was born, I was never the child they expected. I liked playing ‘dressing up’ in my mother’s silky undergarments. I didn’t like playing ‘rough and tumble’ with my male cousins. Instead, I liked to play ‘dolls house’ with my cousins Mable and Jane.’

‘I guess they all were at a lost as to what to do, and how to react to you. And you must have been bewildered as to why you were so different to everyone around you.’

‘Things came to a head, when I made an entrance at a Christmas party dressed up in my mother’s pearls, and a pair of her high heeled shoes.

‘I think I will join you in that drink Michael. Not gin, something soft.

After taking a long drink, David asked; ‘So how did your parents end up in Jamaica without you?’

‘As I grew older, and all attempts to interest me in manly pursuits failed, my mother’s health deteriorated.’

‘Were you ostracized within your own family for it? How did they treat you?’

‘They blamed me and I blamed myself. But they offered to help, by paying my fees for boarding school and getting a post for my father in Jamacia, where they felt the climate was more agreeable for her health.

Michael wiped his cheeks on his sleeves. He takes a deep breath.

‘I was bullied at boarding school. I just did not fit. I was a leper. I thought Cambridge would be an improvement, but I was wrong. That’s when I thought of suicide. As it turned out I was good at figures, and the war intervened.’

He pours another shot of gin. Drinks.

‘I got into intelligence, due to my talent with numbers. I enjoyed the war’.

‘You enjoyed the war!’

‘I was assigned to the Ghost Army, which was a technical deception unit that used inflatable tanks, fake aircraft, sound effects and fake radio transmissions to mislead and confuse the German military.’

‘The Ghost Army conduced more than twenty deception operations in Europe after D-Day, often working just miles from the front line. I went on twelve of those missions, completely confusing the enemy with fake radio transmissions, that resulted in victory for our troops well beyond D-Day but while other officers who participated far less than I did, got recognized for their efforts, I was overlooked with the filmiest of excuses.’

‘That must’ve been tough. Poor you.’

The experience was another blow to my self-esteem, but I learnt I had other talents; entertaining the troops. I found I could use the knowledge gained in the Ghost Army for stage craft. Set design, stage management, props and lighting.

‘Did you decide on the theatre as a career after coming out of the army?’

‘I had found my calling. And, of course, that’s where I met Kevin. The love of my life. The first meaningful relationship I ever had. But I believe Kevin loved being an actor more than he ever loved me.’

‘It’s great that you stayed together after all these years.’

‘He went to New York as an understudy to the lead in a major West End play and stayed on. He’s still chasing his dream.’

‘Was that about the time you left for Jamacia?’

‘It was. He said we would be closer.’

‘I get the impression that Kevin loves you as much as he loves acting. Afterall, he moved to New York, so he would be closer to you. And he’s kept faith with you all these years.’

‘Do you really think that?’

‘I got a letter for you; I picked it up from the theatre.’

‘Why didn’t you say? Only Kevin writes to me there’.

‘You were in such a state, I forgot.’

Michael reads the letter, a smile spreading over his face as he does so.

‘Kevin has landed the lead in a Broadway Play and expresses the wish that I could join him in New York on his journey to becoming a star.’

Tears rolled down his cheeks, and he wipes them away with the back of his hand. He collects the gin bottles from the kitchen cupboard, and pours the gin down the sink.

Veronica Robinson is Jamaican/British. She started writing in Jamaica for the evening newspaper, producing stories, articles and an advice column. She contributed in two short films and a flash fiction story to City Lit magazine ‘Between the Lines’. For the past ten years, she has been attending a writers’ group and focusing on writing short stories and flash fiction.